Urban Systems: Mapping Interdependencies and Outcomes to Support Systems Thinking

This paper argues that urban systems issues are design problems on a grand scale and that various disciplines aiming to address them can have only a partial view of the problem. It is necessary to draw boundaries around the detailed analyses of specific issues, but a way to map the wider system, to contextualize and more deeply understand how they are interrelated, is still lacking. Four complexity obstacles related to reasoning about complex systems are in our way, and to our knowledge no existing approach navigates them effectively. We propose a tool called the ion Hierarchy as a way to do just this, in order to frame complex issues on a large scale, in a way accessible to all disciplines. To demonstrate the power of this systems model, the ion Hierarchy is applied to an urban area. Through its application we demonstrate its capability to navigate all four obstacles and investigate previously unexplored space in urban systems research. Plain Language Summary One of the main barriers to combating climate change is unpicking the complexity of the problem and avoiding solutions that work in one way and create problems in another. This is because scientists sometimes fail to acknowledge we are human beings, and human beings reason about complex problems in a certain way. The discipline of human factors is centered on this fact and offers a well‐tested design tool which follows the natural line of human reasoning. This tool—the ion Hierarchy—could be applied in a new way, and at a much larger scale, to understand climate impacts on entire cities. Key Points Systems thinking and interdisciplinary collaboration are needed, but the way humans reason about complex systems is often unacknowledged The ion Hierarchy was developed to complement the natural line of human reasoning and overcome complexity “obstacles” The potential of this approach is demonstrated through an example Urban Systems ion Hierarchy